This week I spent a lot of time bringing the game into a proper scale, building out radar systems properly, getting it all running smoothly on mobile and a ton of other.. stuff, all in the name of getting the game ready for you to play.
Scale is a kind of important, but not really, element of game design. In Interloper, the scale is all off. Matches take place in a 5km radius, but I purposefully fudge the speed numbers, the size of ships, the size of projectiles and more to make it feel more immersive on a smaller screen. Rarely anything is to scale. This is both a benefit and a curse. On the good side, it allows me to make things feel bigger or smaller than they actually are, on the downside, the moment you view the game from within a VR headset, its' all off and feels very weird.
So from the get go I've decided that Exoloper will be true scale. This is extra important mainly to make many of the world assets feel the right size. Very few people have been to space, and conversely a vast majority of the worlds population knows what size a building should be. Also, if I decide down the line that for some reason I want to properly support the Vision Pro.. well.. at least it'll look about right. NO PROMISES!
I also implemented a ton of new features this week, from the data structures required for multiple campaigns, to improved ground textures, to squishing enemy infantry, Touch UI, auto aim, and soooo much more.
If you're interested in giving the game a shot, feel free to join my discord where you'll find the link.